Welding window: Comparison of deribas’ and wittman’s approaches and SPH simulation results

A welding window is one of the key concepts used to select optimal regimes for high-velocity impact welding. In a number of recent studies, the method of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) was used to find the welding window. In this paper, an attempt is made to compare the results of SPH simulation and classical approaches to find the boundaries of a welding window. The experimental data on the welding of 6061-T6 alloy obtained by Wittman were used to verify the simulation results. Numerical simulation of high-velocity impact accompanied by deformation and heating was carried out by the SPH method in Ansys Autodyn software. To analyze the cooling process, the heat equation was solved using the finite difference method. Numerical simulation reproduced most of the explosion welding phenomena, in particular, the formation of waves, vortices, and jets. The left, right, and lower boundaries found using numerical simulations were in good agreement with those found using Wittman’s and Deribas’s approaches. At the same time, significant differences were found in the position of the upper limit. The results of this study improve understanding of the mechanism of joint formation during high-velocity impact welding.